Remarkable Bronze Age sword discovered in Bavaria

The weapon is razor-sharp, almost suspiciously beautiful for an object barely exhumed from its grave. The perfectly preserved blade does not show its age, although the emerald reflections of the handle betray the corrosion of a copper alloy. It is a bronze sword. It is almost 3300 years old. This remarkable vestige was unearthed last week by archaeologists from the Bavarian Office for the Conservation of Historic Monuments, during the release of a multi-millennium burial in Nördlingen, in southern Germany.

According to Bavarian archaeologists, the tomb from which this breathtaking weapon comes has so far been dated to the end of the 14th century BC. J.-C., i.e. from the period known as the Middle Bronze Age. The collective burial housed the remains of a man, a woman and a teenager. Later examinations will be able to confirm whether it was a family tomb, while the post-excavation study of the funerary furniture should make it possible to learn more about the properties of the sword.

“We can already say that its state of conservation is exceptional; a discovery of this kind is extremely rare,” said curator Mathias Pfeil, head of the Bavarian Office for the Conservation of Historic Monuments, in a statement. According to the testimony of German specialists, the weapon “almost still shines”. Although immaculate, it would not be a ceremonial sword, but a weapon forged for combat, as the balance of its weight, adjusted to accompany the blows seems to indicate.

In the images of the excavation shared by the researchers, the sword lies in the middle of the damp earth, among human bones, a group of arrowheads as well as a series of other small copper objects which must have made up the rest of the funeral deposit.

The end of the 3rd millennium BC was marked by the development of metallurgy and the mastery of bronze technology. These innovations lead to the appearance and then to the development of a range of new objects, such as swords. The one discovered in Nördlingen belongs to a well-documented type. The Schleswig Land Museum, at Gottorf Castle in northern Germany, has a fine collection of them. “Swords from this period are rare and come either from burial mounds explored in the 19th century, or from isolated burials”, specifies the press release from the Bavarian archaeologists.